


the tron elevator discourse crackfic

by lobster_emoji



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, an alternate version of the End Of Line scene where the author just really hates elevators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 17:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21377731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lobster_emoji/pseuds/lobster_emoji
Summary: Sam realizes Zuse is stalling when the guy's been talking for what feels like ages, and hasn't actuallydoneanything yet. He's clearly fallen into a trap, so he dodges Gem and Zuse the second he can and heads directly for the elevator.Meanwhile, a less dramatic version of the Black Guard, heavily delayed by programs going to and from lower floors, is finally on their way up to the top floor.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	the tron elevator discourse crackfic

**Author's Note:**

> born from a few jokes on the tron tumblr groupchat and my undying hatred of the inefficiencies of elevators. i deal with a nine story building with two elevators and get pissed on the regular, 660 more floors and one less elevator has me wanting to scream.
> 
> note 12/30: edited to fix floor numbers because i miscounted before and it's been bugging me that they were wrong here since legacy day.

“Where’s your sense of _humor_, my friend?” Zuse loudly declares, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at Gem, approaching with the User on her elbow.  
In front of him, Bartik is droning on and on about how programs have been disappearing, soon none of us will be left, whatever. Some plea about uniting factions, fomenting rebellion— _forget_ fomenting, he’d much rather be _fermenting_. But Zuse restrains himself from spitting the _obvious_ joke in Bartik’s face, giving some vague reply neither committing nor denying the rebel outright. The User is here— he’s got some… _hosting_… to do.  
Bartik just won’t take a hint, begging for an audience with Zuse; how _clever_ Zuse was to adopt his alias. “Your enthusiasm is _intoxicating_, my _dear_ Bartik, but Zuse’s time is _precious_. We shall _see,_” he says, attempting to dissuade Bartik without alienating a precious source of information entirely.  
Gem saunters up to him, whispering in his ear. “_I brought your boy Flynn._”  
An opening to get away from this positively _pedestrian_ conversation into one that would get him _results_. He makes his awkward excuses and darts away, offering free drinks over his shoulder as a palliative and quickly linking arms with the User and guiding him into somewhere more _private_.  
Zuse, of course, knows how to put on a show. Buttering up his target, he declares loudly for all and sundry to hear: “Come! Away from these _primitive functions_. The Son of Flynn! Of all the innumerable possibilities, he has to walk into _mine_. Libations! For _everybody!_  
“I am _Castor_, your host,” Zuse proclaims, swinging his cane about dramatically. “Provider of _any_ and all entertainments and diversions.” He sinks into a deep bow. “At your service.”  
The User looks far too serious, hardly batting an eye at the words. “I’m looking for Zuse,” he says, straight to the point.  
Zuse is almost thrown— almost. “Indeed,” he says, maintaining his standard air of casual neutrality. “Many are.”  
“Where can I find him?”  
“This, pretty miss, is a conversation best had,” Zuse says, tapping his cane twice to grab dear Gem’s attention, “behind closed doors.” Making eye contact, he stresses the importance of his message. “Perhaps we should _retire_ to my _private lounge._”  
Tapping his cane again with a press to one of the cleverly hidden controls along the side, he brings down the stairs to the lodge. “_Oh!_ I designed it myself, you know,” Zuse confides to the User, unable to resist the _small_ indulgence in vanity.  
He calls for the DJ’s to change the music to something more energetic, to electrify the club’s patrons in his absence— though truthfully it seems the mere _presence_ of the scintillating User has done the DJ’s job for them. The ability, quite honestly, is just a bit _daunting_ to someone who prides himself so heavily upon his skills in the… _influencing_… of other programs. But that is _precisely_ why he is summoning Clu’s forces to the club.  
He invites the User into his lounge, and Gem taps the panel on the wall with a direct line to Clu’s lieutenants. It flashes. They’ll be in the club before the User can finish his drink.  
Zuse begins prattling about the importance of the role he’s played in the Grid’s history so far, and how he could be of _such_ a benefit to this User’s plight.  
The User asks to meet him! How relieving, that the Son of Flynn hasn’t seen through his ruse.  
“You just _did_,” Zuse says, savoring every word as it drips from his tongue, delighting in the stunned approbation written so _plainly_ in the User’s expression. Offering the User his drink, Zuse goes on describing his history, revealing just enough of his motivations to make the User feel safe in his care.  
The Black Guard should be boarding the elevator by now, in Zuse’s oh-so-_adept_ estimate.

* * *

  
The head guardsman taps the button to summon the elevator; glancing up, it seemed to be parked somewhere around the three-hundredth floor. It stays there for a microcycle or two, and the guard all sigh frustratedly when, upon finally moving, it heads up, stopping almost at the top.  
It only stays upward of 440 for half a micro, before starting to rocket downwards, and the guard breathes a sigh of relief.  
The elevator, infuriatingly, stops around the tenth floor. A gaggle of programs gathered behind the guard groans quietly.

* * *

  
Zuse has already _thoroughly_ explained the nature of the portal and its operation, elucidated _why_, precisely, the Sam’s lightsuit is a problem, told him about _all_ the technicalities of the forged disc, given a _lot_ of unnecessary information regarding his history with Quorra and some program named Anon, and Sam’s starting to get a bit suspicious, especially what with that ‘portal closing soon’ thing Zuse literally _started_ with.  
Zuse is running out of conversation topics; the guard should _be here_ by now.  
Sam resolves to at _least_ get an outfit change, and then get the hell outta dodge. This is probably a trap; Zuse has almost certainly changed loyalties in the thousand cycles since Quorra last saw the guy and these creepy-ass programs in white are trying to play him like a fiddle; their reinforcements are just late, for whatever reason.  
“So can you _help_ me, help me. You mentioned I’m sticking out like a sore thumb, why don’t we change that real quick?” Sam asks.  
Zuse is visibly flustered, but instructs Gem to get Sam a change of circuitry anyway.

* * *

  
Finally, the elevator arrives at the ground floor, opening to reveal a few sirens and one busy-looking program. The guard all piles on as they exit the elevator, and the head guardsman presses the button for the End Of Line. But all the other programs waiting for the elevator squeeze on, too.  
“Can you hit 327?”  
“I need 106.”  
“17, please.”  
“400!”  
The guard reluctantly obliges the barrage of requests, and up they slide— to seventeen and beyond.

* * *

  
Sam emerges looking just as crazy as he did before, but suitably normal for the programs’ eyes at least. This particular permutation of walking glowstick is fine, apparently.  
“Let me get a drink, real quick,” Sam mutters, and strides away before Gem can catch his arm. He buries himself in the crowd— the DJ’s have really turned up the music and some people are starting to dance, even though, as Zuse told him somewhere in his stalling-monologue, that the club is currently set up as a lounge and the dance floor won’t come out until he’s hopefully long gone on his way to the portal.  
But whatever it is, it’s good cover. Sam ducks and weaves to get to the area where he came in, taking his cloak back from the attendant, sparing only a glance for the stranger programs looking at him with awe. He presses the button, and waits.

* * *

  
The guardsmen are all tapping their feet, clenching fists, and generally trying not to fly into a rage at the various civilian programs slowly trickling out of the elevator. They’ve finally made it up to 400. Only 48 more floors to go.  
One fearful program darts out on 400 , and there’s only two more of the little bastards left. Luckily, if the head guardsman remembers correctly, they were getting out together on 415.  
It’s a quick jaunt up the fifteen floors, and _finally_ they’re next.

* * *

  
Sam watches the number above the door tick upward from 415, anxious to get on the elevator and out of there.  
Of course, when the door slides open, Zuse’s reinforcements are finally here.  
Sam keeps his head low and tries to pretend he’s any other program. Admittedly, Gem and Zuse’s new outfit helps. They’re looking for a program in Disc Wars gear— kinda the combination of a User-world prisoner’s orange jumpsuit and a football uniform, he reflects— and the guards seem to have bought it, swarming outwards towards the club floor. Suddenly, as Sam’s pressed the button labelled 1, getting into the elevator, and the doors are closing, one of the guards does a double take and recognizes him.  
Sam brazenly waves at them, but steps back in fear as the guard gets their fingers into the door crack. “Oh, _fuck_.”  
The elevator starts moving down and Sam breathes a sigh of relief, and the fingers are dragged upward in the door before shattering into tiny orange cubes on the floor of the elevator. Sam breathes a sigh of relief— but then, looking up, the doors to the elevator on the top floor are pried open, the guardsmen parachuting down to the elevator’s roof. A disc slices through the ceiling slowly, and Sam can’t do _shit_ about it.

* * *

  
A light runner screeches up to the base of the tower, causing some onlookers to shriek and run away; other programs gawk at the spectacle from a safe distance as the Creator emerges with another program.  
Quorra and Flynn rush to the elevator, which appears to be headed upwards, hovering around 415.  
“He’s probably in trouble by now,” Flynn worries, “And we’re stuck down here! Shaddox always told me we needed more elevators in this building…”  
“Don’t worry,” Quorra says. “Look, it’s coming back down now.”  
Far above, some bright orange pinpricks of light in the sky descend towards the plummeting elevator.  
“That may not be a good sign,” Quorra amends.

* * *

  
Four Black Guard drop into the elevator to meet a prepared Sam Flynn. He derezzes one guardsman with his disc as they drop to the floor and surprises another one with a quick jab to the stomach, but the other two have time to prepare as they find their ankles engulfed in orange voxels.  
Sam lets his old muscle memory take control, kicking and spinning from the memories of capoeira lessons taken years before, and manages to hold his own in the elevator, buying time for it to descend—  
Only the elevator froze when the Guard cut the roof open. Sam’s locked in a glass cage with two extremely dangerous programs hovering three hundred stories in the air, and there’s more black guard dropping from the club. His capoeira is enough to _buy time_, not win a fight against Clu’s best. He barely made it out of the arena alive.  
He spots the lightcycle baton on his thigh and takes a deep breath, hoping against all hope he’s right, and flings himself backward through the elevator’s glass doors. The cycle’s tires rez against floor 296 and then he’s driving to the ground. Zuse told him about how, cycles before, Quorra had used the Solar Sailer to escape to some place called Arjia; maybe it could take him to the portal.  
He zooms past the ground level into the depths, going for the platform he sees below, and whoops with joy to see Quorra and Dad following close behind.

**Author's Note:**

> yes the tower has 448 floors. yes I counted. come at me on tumblr (digital--lobster)


End file.
